Biting Back
by K Hanna Korossy
Summary: Bitten tag: Tying up a few loose ends from the hunt, and one from his brother that Sam can't help tugging on.


**Biting Back**  
K Hanna Korossy

They were halfway down the front steps when Dean snapped his fingers. Sam looked over to see his brother roll his eyes and turn back. Seconds later he'd returned, iPod in hand.

"Fingerprints," Dean muttered with disgust.

Oh, yeah. Considering they were leaving behind a bloody scene and two dead bodies—werewolves, actually, but the cops would only see two college students—it was wise not to leave any sign they'd been there. Sam was carrying the only thing he'd touched: Brian Wilcox's laptop.

Sam nodded toward the iPod. "You gonna keep it?" Dean could've just wiped it down.

"Dude, what would I—?" Dean paused, cocking his head, a half-smile appearing that said he had an idea. "No, I got something better."

They glanced around as they hit the sidewalk out of sheer habit: sometime soon, police would be canvassing the neighborhood, asking if anyone had seen anything suspicious. It wasn't the first time Sam wished they drove something a little less...unique, but he knew better than to ever say that to Dean.

But no one was around, and they crossed the street quickly and strode a couple houses down to the waiting Impala. As they got in, Sam shot his brother a look. "What?"

Dean tossed the iPod between them. "We got a dead professor at the school and two wasted students here, right?"

Sam frowned. "Right..."

Dean threw him a grin. "So how about we connect the dots for 5-0?" He turned the Impala's engine over.

"You mean, plant the iPod in the professor's stuff?"

Dean paused to point at him, "Yahtzee," before pulling out onto the road.

"But the cops have gotta be all over Ludensky's office by now." They'd gone to the professor's office to confront the werewolf, but had ended up shooting him. Without a silencer.

"They're thinking he's the vic. They're not gonna check his house for a while."

And...that actually made sense. "Huh. Yeah, okay. It'll probably take 'em off Kate's scent for a while, anyway." Long enough for the one werewolf survivor of this mess to get away. With their blessing.

Shaking his head free of a thought he didn't want to dwell on too much, Sam opened the laptop. Kate's face was still framed on the screen, and he shut the file and went to work.

Dean was glancing over at him as he drove. "What're you doing?"

"Connecting another dot."

Dean grunted and kept driving.

An hour later, they sat way down at the end of the block and watched a pair of police cruisers pull up in front of Ludensky's apartment building. The cops didn't seem particularly hurried or motivated, but the Winchesters had made it easy for them: the iPod—carefully wiped of prints—and laptop had been left in plain sight on Ludensky's coffee table. And the laptop only had one file left on it. Sam had erased, very thoroughly, the part where Ludensky bit Brian, but not the part where he'd confessed to attacking Michael and to the bloodlust behind two other "animal attacks" in the area. The cops pretty much had their case gift-wrapped.

"If they think Professor Ludensky killed Michael and Brian, who're they gonna think shot Ludensky?"

Dean shrugged. "Does it matter? If they think he's the psycho behind four deaths, they're not exactly gonna be bustin' their chops to figure out who offed him."

Sam couldn't disagree. Even if they did decide to pin it on Kate, the one missing player, they probably wouldn't try too hard to find her.

Dean started the car and made a U-turn in the nearest driveway to leave town.

Sam chewed the inside of his mouth as Dean turned south, heading out of Michigan, probably to the next hunt Sam didn't want to be on.

He knew he was opening a can of worms by opening his mouth, but he did it anyway. "I can't believe you let her go."

Dean's gaze flicked over to him, then back to the road. "Kate? _We're_ letting her go. That's what you wanted, right?"

"No, yeah, I did, but...we killed Madison."

Dean gave him a more calculating look this time. "Madison was old-school werewolf: out of control, high body count. Kate's the watered-down version, right? Can live on animal hearts, control her turns? You're not a monster until you act like one—isn't that what you've always preached?"

"Yeah, but...you didn't. I thought after Purgatory..." Kill or be killed: isn't that what Dean had said? He'd already been prone to black-and-white before, and he'd claimed repeatedly since Purgatory that it had given him clarity about his job. Sam had assumed that meant monsters, too.

"Purgatory wasn't all bad. I tell you I met Lenore? Anything non-human lands there, whether they deserve it or not."

"Huh."

Dean glanced over at him. "What?"

"Nothing." Sam shifted in his seat; he really was poking the bear here. "Just, since you got back, you've been kinda..."

"What, Sam?" Dean asked impatiently.

"...all, stab first, ask questions later. I'm just surprised you're letting Kate go to try to live a normal life instead of taking her out, just in case."

Dean shot him a look. "Oh, so this is really about you and Amanda."

"Amelia," Sam corrected with irritation. Either Dean didn't care enough to get her name right or he was doing it deliberately to get under Sam's skin, but both ways he was tired of it. "And no. I just..." He shook his head; he wasn't sure himself what he was saying. "Look, never mind."

Dean let the silence sit a few beats, long enough that Sam startled when he spoke up. "People change, man."

Sam waited, expecting more. But there didn't seem to be more coming. "Uh...that's it?"

Dean's shoulder hitched. "Yeah, that's it." He looked Sam up and down once. "Except, now I'm kinda starting to see the whole 'workplace-romance vibe' thing Michael and Brian were talking about."

"Shut up," Sam grumbled, settling back in his seat. Okay, so maybe that _was_ it. Dean had always been pragmatic, and maybe he was just more so now. Maybe he'd even made a few friends in Purgatory. Besides Cas, and the thought shut down the small voice of suspicion in the back of Sam's mind. Dean still had to be reeling from the loss of his old friend. If that softened some of the sharp corners Dean had developed in limbo, well, that wasn't a bad thing.

Sam looked out the window, wondering where Kate was now. Wishing her well. Not envying her, nope, not even a little bit.

Then Dean turned on Zeppelin, and the music rolled them on their way.

 **The End**


End file.
